Kuju rolls a Double Six

Another of Kuju’s studios has rebranded, with its Godalming, Surrey studio renamed to Double Six, given a new logo identity (pictured) and moved into new premises in Guildford.

It’s the third of Kuju’s teams to change name. The Brighton-based team became Zoe Mode in March, to reflect its work on social entertainment, while the Sheffield office renamed itself Chemistry as an embodiment of the studio’s choice to solely develop using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3.

Similarly, the Double Six name has been chosen to reperesent the studio’s new focus: shorter-form games for digital distribution.

James Brooksby, speaking in the next issue of Develop (due out in a week), commented: “Double Six is a new studio within Kuju Entertainment that is focused on addictive, ‘have another go’, digitally distributed games for all platforms.

“We thrive on small, innovative, enthusiastic teams who will give their all to projects that inspire them. We believe that with the advent of XBLA, PSN and Wiiware the future of digitally distributed games promises to be more diverse than ever in both scale and genre. Double Six has been established to deliver on that promise.”

The studio had previously made a name for itself as online experts, producing the multiplayer components of a number of PC and console games.

Meanwhile, the move to Guildford also represents reinvigoration for that area of the country when it comes to development – in the past 18 months EA UK, Media Molecule and Codemasters have joined long-running Guildfordites Lionhead and Criterion to open studios in the town.

Kuju has two other studios – Rail Simulator, which works on transport simulators for EA, and Kuju London, which currently enjoys a fruitful relationship with Nintendo working on the Battalion Wars series.